Local education analyst George Scott has taken the Katy ISD Board of Trustees to task over their adoption of a new grading policy for the school district, calling board members’ approval of the critical policy without substantive public discussion “despicable.”
Trustees adopted the new grading policy as part of Tuesday’s school board consent agenda.
The new grading policy allows Katy ISD schools to have a re-do/re-test procedure.
The new policy also abandons a standing district policy to assign no grade lower than 50 on report cards. That change was spurred by a court ruling that said a law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2009 requiring schools to give actual earned grades also applied to “cumulative” grades, such as those on report cards.
Scott, who also publishes “George Scott Reports,” a Web-based analysis of issues facing local education, said the board’s decision to approve a critical change in grading policy without public dialog was “absolutely 100 percent despicable.”
“This was a total abandonment of responsibility on the part of the school board,” Scott said.
He also said the policy of allowing each campus to develop its own re-test policy could place teachers in an untenable position.
“Every classroom teacher may be required to prepare two tests for every test given – one for the initial test and one for the re-test,” Scott said.
He also said each campus could theoretically differ in the nature of the re-test.
“Will it be the same test or a completely different test? Will it include some material from the first test and some new material? If so, how much new material would the new test be required to have?” Scott noted. “The logistics of this are awesome.”
Scott said campus differences in grading policy could also impact student grade-point averages and top-ten graduates, all of which could, in turn, affect which students get scholarships and the amount of those scholarships.
Scott stressed the district’s action was within the parameters of state education but, he was still concerned about the lack of public dialog and cursory adoption process taken by board members.
“It is not illegal. The very loose language of the law leaves a loophole big enough for curriculum administrators to drive a Mack truck through the concept of academic integrity,” Scott said. “The fact that something might be legal does not mean that it’s academically sane.”
Scott said the broad language of the law, as well as questions over legislative intent, should have been a part of a wide-ranging public discussion before the new grading policy before was adopted. Instead, he noted, it was approved on the consent agenda along with 21 other items considered by the board to be routine and not requiring extensive deliberation.
There was also no public discussion of the change by trustees at the work study session that preceded the regular board meeting.
“This was a despicable abandonment of the board’s responsibility to taxpayers, students and teachers,” Scott said. “The Board of Trustees of the Katy Independent School District is hopelessly, endlessly and pervasively incompetent.”
Under the new policy, all Katy ISD campuses must adopt a set of minimum procedures, but schools still have flexibility in deciding on the specific components of the re-testing.
Individual campuses will determine how re-test/re-do grades will be reflected in the student’s average, as well as the qualification and time period allowed for retakes.
The district said Katy ISD principals are currently in the process of finalizing their individual campus procedures.
Parents can expect to hear more detailed information about their student’s school procedure in mid-September.
GEORGE SCOTT
Thanks for shining the first spotlight on this issue.
There have been private communications within the district that the policy might also incorporate a retest policy for students making below a 90. Such discussions and possibility explain the context of my remarks regarding the top 10 issue.
The importance of these issues is why attorney Larry Watts and I have both sought extensive information and communications from the district. It would seem that members of the board would have at least given a cursory appearance of intellectual curiosity.
As this matter develops, there will be those of us who follow it very closely. Again, thanks for your journalistic leadership.